A plethora of picures

Before I tell you tales of Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, I thought I'd celebrate the fact I've been able to download the pictures taken so far and share some with you. It's only a handful really (how large is that when you've taken over 2000 pictures I wonder ....). I'll wait until I'm home to upload everything, because I want to fiddle with them. never fear, Facebook will be inundated come the end of August.

So, without comment, here are some pictures taking in Viareggio, Lucca, Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Rome, Sorrento, Capri and Amalfi.

 

Rome and Sorrento

The WiFi in this hotel is incredibly sporadic, and I'm currently sitting in a very plush lobby writing this, so it will be short and sweet.

I don't have much of note to say about Rome that wouldn't end up being a rant about the place, although on the positive side, I do love the Protestant cemetery (Keats's grave is like a little oasis of peace) and I ate very well indeed whilst I was there. However, Rome is not the place for me, and in a place so filled with things to worship, I sort of feel like it's got no soul.

So - I was hoping I'd have a plethora of pictures to share with you, as my mother has arrived in Sorrento, and brought with her my SD card reader ..... but it doesn't get picked up by the tablet, so you're all going to have to wait until the end of August to see proper pictures, and then there will be so many of them, you won't know what to do with yourselves and will feel like there is a superfluity of images ..... which is kind of how I feel after a few days of wandering around soaking things in!!!!

I've taken a few snaps on the tablet of my hotel, so here you are - these will have to see you through! Tomorrow it's my Mother's birthday and we're off to the Opera in Naples, courtesy of my father.

 

A view from Siena

*Written in Siena, although posted on first day in Rome*

When I was planning my grand and glorious tour of Italy, there were certain places I knew I had to see. Ferrara and Venice were high on my list, but a central pin was Siena. Also in the planning was the ever central question of how long to stay in each place. It turns out that five days in Siena, when you are on your own, don't drive and it's too hot to contemplate a stuffy bus trip anywhere, is just a bit too long.

Right - that's my little moan over. At the time of writing this (Friday 18th July) I have stumbled across a little café, quite uninspiring from the front, but with a large garden with a view of he surrounding hills, and I have regained my equilibrium, happy in the knowledge that I could probably stay here for hours. [And I did ... the café does an excellent cold pasta and there is a beautiful smell of warm plums, which drop from the trees all around].

Siena is utterly captivating as a town, built as it is on a hillside, and therefore practically everything seems to be at a slight slant. The centre is a mass of windy streets that all lead to the Campo or the Duomo, whilst the city outside the old walls spreads out before tapering off into fields with the odd, grand looking, villa in the distance.

The Duomo is the centre piece of the town - a massive construction of black and white marble, with the outer façade so intricately designed that it could double as a wedding cake. On Tuesday I spent most of the day wandering around it, accompanied by an Oxford friend who happened to be holidaying a little ay away with the rest of her family. It is easy enough to spend hours inside the Duomo. The inside is highly decorated, with some hugely impressive marble pavements, depicting various Sybil, scenes from Siena's history and geometric designs. Siena was hugely important in the late middle ages through to the mid 1550s. Self governing for quite some time, until the area got mixed up in the wars of the 1540s and 50s and ended up under the governance of Florence and the Medici.

Perhaps this is why the Duomo is so spectacular, but the building also suffered from the times, and an extension to it was never completed, due to quite a large part of the population being wiped out by the plague in the 1400s (sorry - bit vague on dates, all this is from memory). They left the intended extension standing though, and it makes an unusual addition - and one you can walk up to the top of - yet more steps!!!

Not as many steps as in the tower of the Campo however - I climbed them on a very hot morning and thought they might never finish. Up and up and up, with no breaks and just when you think you've reached the top because you're face to face with a massive bell, you find there's three more levels. But the view! Suddenly you're high above the muddled twisty streets and can see for miles. If they let people up when the Palo happens, it must give the most fantastic perspective on that hectic race.

Before the surge in heat to the mid 30s of the last couple of days, I did venture out to San Gimignano - again a must see on the itinerary. A bus ride of just over an hour will get you to this lovely town. Again, built on the side of a hill and populated with many towers. I seem to have been following the trail of numerous Maggie Smith and Judi Dench film during my time in Tuscany, and here was no different. I got into (I think) great trouble for taking a picture of Santa Fina in the Church (the Italian probably along the lines of 'I've told you once young lady, don't do it again or I'll have you thrown out ...!') San Gimignano feels like it's got everything - an old fort, some medieval fountains, its own saint, beautiful frescoes and the Templar were there at some point too!

Back now to the present and my last day in Siena is proceeding better than I thought it would. I can be no bad thing to have a few lazy days, for Rome will be packed with things to do. I'm even having breakfast in the Vatican, although the Pope won't be joining me - he's got better things to do). I don't think there's any Maggie Smith films to emulate in Rome - I'll just have to be Audrey Hepburn instead. It's a hard old life.

*Post typing up note* As much as I was looking forward to Rome, I am feeling slightly overwhelmed by the scope of the place, and also a little annoyed with myself that I think I got stung by the taxi driver .... protest he said - protest my foot! I attempted to go out and prove to myself that it was all fine, got a little lost, couldn't find Shelley's house (but have at least located his grave) and felt just generally annoyed at myself for being so pathetic. So, I've booked myself on a tour to Tivoli and it's grand palazzo's for Tuesday, so it's only tomorrow I've got to plan. The Protestant cemetery is near a church of the order of Malta and a few Roman ruins that might not be as packed as the Coliseum, and then I'll try to go up to the other side of the city to visit the Villa Borghese. It will still be really hot, so lots of visits to cafés will be imperative too!!! 

 

Florence

I write this sitting on a little terrace overlooking the Arno. Four bridges to my left is the Ponte Vecchio and the reams of tourists passing over it. It's fiercely hot, although not as high as it could be, and there's a thunderstorm expected in a few hours. I'm making the most of the sun whilst I can - and hoping the rain doesn't follow me to Siena.

The last fours days have passed in a riot of architecture, art, colour and a hell of a lot of walking. I bought the Firenze card before I came, which gives access to 72 places over 72 hours. I don't think I've seen all of them, but I've certainly not been idle!

Arriving in Florence, I had a bit of a blip when I got to the hostel I'd booked. The street felt quite lonely and far out of the main city, and I didn't think I'd feel safe going out in the evening. I'd arrived earlier than check in time, so decided to go to the Pitti Palace to prove to myself I was just being silly, and spent an hour or so wandering around, enjoying the splendour. Of course, when I found myself tearful in the main courtyard, I reminded myself that this was a holiday and if I was miserable now, it wouldn't get better, so I returned to the hostel and used their WiFi to find a better place. And only had to pay one night for cancelling.

The Hotel Consigli, right on the Arno, and a ten minute walk from the main centre, is lovely. And it has a very affectionate bulldog. Perfecto!

So, what have I been doing these last few days? I won't give you a blow by blow account - three days of 'and then I went to ...' could get a little boring. But I've found some new favourites to share, like the Palazzo Vecchio, Santa Maria Novella, Palazzo Davanzati and the Bardini Gardens. I've climbed more stairs than I would normally do in a month. Endless stairs, particularly to get to the top of the Cupola in the Duomo ..... all 463 of them. And back down. The view was worth it though. Art hides itself in the oddest corners too - I've stumbled across Ghirlandaio's on random walls, walked into rooms filled with amazingly vibrant Della Robbia's and all sorts of other hidden gems. I've taken far too many pictures, and I suspect that I will come to forget where the picture was taken - but the ceiling was beautiful, or the art needed capturing, or the food needed to be seen to be believed. Memory is good, but cameras are for sharing.

Speaking of views, I got up to Fiesole for a bit, and it was wonderful to see all of Florence laid out below me. The same could be said of San Minato too, which I went to today (Sunday) and then spent a lazy half an hour or so in the rose garden reading, whilst all the church bells chimed out, reminding people it was time for mass. .... except that I appear not to have got there. Sitting on the terrace earlier, I saw that the church I visited was nestled in some trees just below the one with the great marble front. So perhaps I need to walk back up those infernal steps.

There have been disappointments too - the main Cuomo, so beautiful on the outside is an ugly place once you get inside, and seems designed just to shunt tourists from one side to the other, no time to sit down, and barely any place to do so anyway, for the nave is roped off. It did protect me from a thunderstorm - a massive crack of thunder sounding right over my head just as I entered. I suppose I should have taken it for a sign! San Casciano, a small village half an hour away, was not what I expected either. I'd decided I wanted to go there, because it is supposedly where a small part of My House in Umbria was shot - a wonderful film with Maggie Smith. It is a lovely little hillside town, and has excellent views of Chianti country, but I couldn't find the specific bit I was looking for (which was probably right under my nose) and so I left.

I've not mentioned food, and I'm struggling to get into a proper rhythm. I have always been a pasta fan, but here the portions are huge, and I always fancy a second course, and then can't finish it. The night I had bistecca Fiorenta - which was as big as my head - will be forever remembered because I could barely eat half of it.

Note to self - you don't need to have two courses, and you don't need to have pasta just because it's there. Now, if I could just remember that.

Now I've got to walk up those blasted steps again and make my way to San Minato for real this time ......

Stage one - Viarregio

If the weather had stayed like it was for my arrival - wonderfully sunny, hardly a breath of wind and a fab 27 degrees, I might have been content to sit on the beach for a whole two days.

The wind and the rain, however, had other ideas, with Monday seeing huge clouds being chased in from the sea around lunchtime and a massive rainstorm overnight. Today, Tuesday, I decided to go to Lucca - a short train ride inland - a lovely little city, ringed by a stone and earth wall, with a couple of churches which are gems and the birthplace of Puccini.

I've been to Lucca before, when my parents and I were staying in Montecatini. It was there I showed off my only Italian, asking 'Dove casa Puccini?' only to find it was directly behind me and covered in scaffolding.

I had no plan, so merely meandered around streets, into churches, up bell towers (the last part of which was interesting to say the least. A practically vertical ladder, with an up draft, a down draft, my hat clamped on my heat and my skirts choosing this moment to do a Monroe impression. Did I say it was windy? It was very windy.

A sharp prolonged shower found me disoriented under an umbrella, and I almost gave up on finding the statue of Puccini, but a quick lunch and the return of the sun found me newly determined to find it, and in the end it didn't prove so difficult. The Puccini museum also turned out to be open, and it was fascinating to wander about the second floor of a house, where his grandmother had lived, and where he himself had been born. No pictures were allowed, sadly, of the wonderfully painted walls, although I did manage to sneak a picture of the costume from the second act of Turandot - I'll add it here when I finally get a USB card converter!

Returning to Viareggio, I almost missed the train (not another for an hour) because of the Italian habit of having convoluted conversations with the ticket officer, and then I tried to be brave and sat outside a bar, trying to look glamorous, in the howling wind. The fact all the locals had jumpers on finally persuaded me I was being silly, and I have since retired to the hotel bar.

Dinner is at 8 - tomorrow I head for Firenze!

The start of the holiday - a brief note

I don't suppose that famous travel writers like Jan Morris or Paul Theroux would start writing about their travels by announcing they were spending the night in a Premier Inn .... however it seemed to make sense to me.

The Gatwick bus from Oxford isn't the most exciting way to travel (except when the driver forgot to raise the suspension leaving the South terminal) but, hey - it's got to be better than hitchhiking.

So I'm all set - apart from stupidly leaving the SD card adaptor at home. Dixons will be paid a visit in the morning!

Now I'm off to dinner - the next time I post, I'll be in Italy. I very much hope it's warmer, and sunnier, than here!